Pages

Monday, December 31, 2007

That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another’s arms, birds in the trees—Those dying generations—at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unlessSoul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor every tatter in its mortal dress,Nor is there singing school but studyingMonuments of its own magnificence;And therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fireAs in the gold mosaic of a wall,Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing-masters of my soul.Consume my heart away; sick with desireAnd fastened to a dying animalIt knows not what it is; and gather meInto the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths makeOf hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy Emperor awake;Or set upon a golden bough to singTo lords and ladies of ByzantiumOf what is past, or passing, or to come.

Friday, December 28, 2007

1. It's kind of boring.2. The music is great.3. I like it because it's different.4. I like that it plays off of ideas of "dreams coming true" (every street musician wants to record and be loved, right?)5. I like that it plays off of ideas of reality (the final scenes after the recording are my favorite)6. We had to watch it with subtitles because our non-Irish ears couldn't understand the dialogue.

Bonus Thought: My wife didn't like the fact that it looked like a home movie

I remember reading somewhere months ago that Juno will do to teen pregnancy what Pretty Woman did to prostitution.

After watching the movie my pregnant wife & friend Emily sat discussing that idea. If you have seen the movie, I'd love to hear your perspective as well.

Ellen Page is incredibly convincing as the smart lipped teen who ends up going through with her unplanned pregnancy as she maps out her own course making decisions she admits she is not yet mature enough to make.

Is Juno MacGuff's (Ellen Page) life too easy? Does her life wrap up too picture perfect? Does she not face enough real life consequences to go along with her actions?

I'm sure all of these thoughts are debatable, and with piles of anecdotal evidence, I'm sure different people would say Juno's life is too good or not that good depending on different people's life experiences.

The one thing that is true, is that Ellen Page's character is a strong character and someone who is comfortable with following her heart, who goes to the beat of her own drummer, and has a deep consciousness that wants to see the right thing done. To me these are all admirable characteristics.

Without spoiling the unique turns that the movie makes and it's final conclusion, apart from the premarital sex, Juno makes a good teen role model. Argues against me if you wish, but even from the very beginning scenes she is responsible about her problems, she takes the birth control test and begins to independently work through her situation and her options. Something that many teens simply can't do with out bringing their issues and drama into the world of public and peer opinion.

Juno makes no qualms about the truth that she wishes she weren't pregnant, but she also makes few excuses and blames no one but herself. I find her strength, independence, and desire to see her baby in the best situation possible all very honorable.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Maybe it's just me, but every time I see a still image from the movie The Water Horse: Legend of The Deep, I always think of the Pizza Hut Puppets that were so popular in the time when Pizza Hut and the prehistoric struggles of Littlefoot, Petrie, Spike, Cera & Ducky were in their prime.

I know the popular analogy is to compare the story of Water Horse to ET (just as people compare Wall-E to ET). But in the look of the glossy head of the Lochness Monster in the WWII Scotland movie reminds me of the glossy heads of the plastic toys from 1988. Maybe it's just me.

I wanted to see what the head was made of and just did a quick little google search, that proved pretty fruitless. Except for the fact that I saw that one of the waterhorse model heads is for sale on ebay. (Pictured left). This head must belong to adult version of the Water Horse (note the larger Mohawk) and is guessed to be made out of fiberglass...but what is the cute plasticy head made of of? Latex? Silicon? No clue, but currently the ebay auctioned head is less than a dollar.

Pizza Hut Puppet Image found here, with an original Pizza Hut/Land Before Time Commercial.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

And the Screen Actors nods are in. Most notably...the actors loved Into The Wild (a movie light in the precursors), and found little interest in Atonement. They liked American Gangster, but not enough to honor Denzel by himself. They liked Hairspray, but not enough to honor John Travolta.

Congrats to Ruby Dee who brings the only racial diversity to the group of nominations. I'm glad to see her short-listed her and hope she makes it to Oscar. The bigger question is where is Atonement? Did all the Briony's (Ronan, Redgrave, & Garai) cancel eachother out? The supporting race could get interesting here as we get closer to Oscars.

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

3:10 to YumaAmerican GangsterHairsprayInto the WildNo Country For Old Men

This whole list is a little surprising to me. Especially the inclusion of 3:10, American Gangster, Hairspray...okay, well everything is interesting except for No Country for Old Men. I would have predicted Atonement, Sweeney Todd, & Michael Clayton to make the list. Congrats to Josh Brolin & Russell Crowe for get double SAG Ensemble nods.

This is a picture I took on my cellphone last night. The picture was taken at the mall and the mall employee has drained the fountain and is using a high power vacuum cleaner to suck up the coins from the fountain.

Mind you, this picture was taken around 7pm. The surrounding food court is packed, and every one can her the loud clanking of coins being sucked into this super-powered vacuum cleaner. If you were a child seeing this, this would certainly ruin any illusion that you could make a wish and throw a coin in the fountain.

I don't really know why they were doing this when the mall was busy?

Also, the fountain wasn't super-packed with money...you can get a sense from the picture how he's vacuumed up some of the left side and top tiers of the fountain, but the right side has not been touched.

It made me wonder if the mall was trying to pad their end of the year financial statement, or they desperately needed to make a little extra money to pay Santa Clause for his last week, or maybe the light bill needed paying? And this employee got sent to be the destroyer of dreams, taking all the money out of the fountain to be cut out of the vacuum bag.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

I previously mentioned that I would soon be getting a $100 check from Google as a result of using their AdSense software and having enough clicks on the above ads.

One thought of mine was that perhaps I would look into getting a domain name for StrangeCulture and somehow having it direct to this blog (or actually be on that link). Granted, I'm not that tech-savvy, but I thought I'd look into it. Today I had an e-mail come through offering me the chance to search and see if the domain I was interested was available.

I thought, why not?

Obviously, I tried strangeculture.com and while it was not available, yahoo was so kind to offer some suggestions.

I don't know where these suggestions came from, but one of the top suggestions was ArousalCultureLife.com! Where in the world do they get these suggestions!

And no, you will not someday have to access this blog by typing in ArousalCultureLife.com (or .biz, .info, .org for that matter).

3. Because the book is a little more philosophical and makes comments about truth, perception, and reality, the book does not have a traditional story arch. This will be challenging for some people. (A favorite quote form the book can be found here)

4. The old lady's who were laughing, covering their eyes, and shrieking and saying expressions like "oh my," made the movie fun.

5. Dario Marianelli's score is both good and annoying. The use of typewriter motif makes the music very unique and creative. But the repeating theme (that almost sounds horror-movie-esque) was overplayed. Music plays a big part in this movie, since the movie is not dialogue driven, the music is very important in conveying the characters emotions. In that Marianelli does a great job as well.

6. Which Briony Tallis deserves an academy award nomination? Vanessa Redgrave's tiny scene is incredible, yet it is so short. (A nomination would be similar to Judi Dench's nomination for Shakespeare in Love). Ramola Garai does great, but is also not given significant screen time, relative to Saoirse Ronan excellent acting. I imagine Ronan has a great chance for the supporting nod, and it would be deserved.

7. My wife's never read the book before...what did she think? She got kind of bored in the middle, especially with James McAvoy war scenes.

8. After reading the book, it made me want to engage with other people who knew these characters, actions, motivations, etc. Many of McEwan's messages from this movie are very interesting to me. I hope people see this movie and want to discuss some of the themes further.

9. I felt like this movie reminded me more of a painting than a movie. Especially when the soldiers are out at the beach waiting for pick up. Or even the hospital scenes. The art direction, set design, costumes, and cinematography are all striking. Director Joe Wright did an excellent giving the film a complete style that fit with the film, and he followed through on.

10. Other performances...I'm not sure whether or not I was impressed with Keira Knightley or James McAvoy's performances. I thought both were good, but neither of them were groundbreaking. Yet their characters don't really have a chance to blow the audience away either with a super dramatic scene. Juno Temple does great with her limited scenes, as does Brenda Blethyn.

When I predicted this catagory in October I didn't think Blonsky would make the cut (sort of a one hit wonder), and I accidentally misplaced Cotillard, but congrats to these nominees. It's a competitive catagory and all of them (with the exception of Blonsky) have a viable chance at an Academy Award nod. A win here means something. The exclusion of Laura Linney & Kerri Russell is noticed.

My October globe predictions for Actor missed Tom Hanks (at the time I didn't realize it was in the Comedy Catagory) I also missed John C. Reilly. I'm surprised Hoffman made it by Linney did not. I'm surprised the HFPA didn't nominate Steve Carrell, I thought they loved him. This is a fun list of nominees though for sure.Best Animated Feature FilmBee MovieRatatouilleThe Simpson's Movie

Go Ratatouille...you really don't have much competition this year (unless by the end of the year more people fall in love with the french film Persopolis).Best Foreign Languge Film4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days (Romania)The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (France, United States)The Kite Runner (United States)Lust, Caution (Taiwan)Persepolis (France)

Whoa, I didn't expect to see the Kite Runner here...but just like last year's Apocalypto & Letters from Iwo Jima, a non-English movie is foreign language, even if it's a United State product. I'm not really sure how this effects Kite Runners chances for an Academy nod? But this is a strong list of talked about films, making this a pretty interesting catagory. Any guesses on winners? It could go a lot of different ways here for sure.Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion PictureCate Blanchett – I'm Not ThereJulia Roberts – Charlie Wilson's WarSaoirse Ronan – AtonementAmy Ryan - Gone Baby GoneTilda Swinton – Michael Clayton

With allthe AmyRyan love I was beginning to forget about the Cate Blanchett role. Will Blanchett be able to start picking up awards ahead of Ryan? Also of note, Ronan chosen over Redgrave. Could Roberts continue to be a player this award season?Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion PictureCasey Affleck – The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert FordJavier Bardem – No Country for Old MenPhilip Seymour Hoffman – Charlie Wilson's WarJohn Travolta – HairsprayTom Wilkinson – Michael Clayton

Tim Burton – Sweeney ToddEthan Coen – No Country for Old MenJulian Schnabel – The Diving Bell And The ButterflyRidley Scott – American GangsterJoe Wright – AtonementWith such an open race, great comedies, foreign films and dramas, this catagory really helps narrow down who the HFPA thinks are the best of the best. The surprise here for me is that Ridley Scott got in. I thought the list might look like this, but I thought Paul Thomas Anderson might have been the most likely for the spot Scott got. Congrats to Schnabel. Diving Bell is picking up major buzz it seems every week. Burton also seems to be showered with praise for his work for Sweeney Todd.Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

Again, this can only help these movies with a nomination in this catagory. Especially since it's not divided out between original and adapted. All are adapted except Juno. More love for Charlie Wilson's War & The Diving Bell. With the number of nominations Charlie Wilson's War is scoring, it will certainly help them advertise for the film and up the box office.

They'll do anything to get Eastwood to come to the party, won't they! Congrats to Iglesias, I think he's an excellent composer.Best Original Song - Motion Picture"That's How You Know" - Enchanted"Grace is Gone" - Grace is Gone"Guarenteed" - Into The Wild"Despidida" - Love in the Time of Cholera"Walk Hard" - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

In 1971 Frank Langella got nominated for the Golden Globe award for "Most Promising Newcomer - Male." (This Golden Globe award is not part of their current line-up).

Langella was recognized in 1971 for his role in the film Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Since then, Langella has not received another Golden Globe nod. (James Earle Jones actually won the award that year for his role The Great White Hope)

While he has had some TV and film credits of note, Langella has been far more awarded for his stage roles. In fact he has been nominated for five Tony Awards and won three of those times; winning for Seascape (1975), Fortune's Fool (2002), Frost/Nixon (2007), his other nominations were for Dracula (1978) and Match (2004).

It would appear that this decade along with the 70s has been very good for Langella. Along with his Broadway kudos Langella has had some semi-notable film roles in Good Night & Good Luck as well as the opportunity to play Perry White, the Metropolis newpaper editor in Superman Returns.

Yet, maybe Langella will make bigger waves in the later part of this decade. In fact, Langella has recently scored some recognition for his role as a seasoned writer in the low budget film Starting out in the Evening, where a young graduate student tries to resurrect the writers career through her thesis. This film has already scored Langella best actor accolades from the Boston Society of Film Critics, a Satellite Award Nomination, and the runner up best actor credit in the LA Film Critics Awards.

Does Langella have a chance for the best actor Oscar nomination? He's certainly the late-comer in a category I've long concluded is generally decided. But maybe if he gets nominated for a globe he has a chance, but even still, a globe nod is probably not enough.

More likely though, is that Langella will get a chance to shine in next year's film Frost/Nixon which won Langella the Tony Award on Broadway, and will give him a chance to play the part of Richard Nixon on the big screen under the direction of Ron Howard (although some how I imagine that Langella might be directing Howard, rather than the other way around).

Who knows Langella might be 1971s most promising new comer yet (although James Earl Jones is a tough one to out-shine).

Monday, December 10, 2007

Nothing to different, except more love for No Country for Old Men, Amy Ryan, Javier Bardem, Julie Christie with a dash of There Will Be Blood thrown in.

Picture: No Country For Old MenDirector: The Coen Bros, No Country For Old MenActor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be BloodActress: Julie Christie, Away From HerSupporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country For Old MenSupporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby GoneScreenplay: The Coen Bros, No Country For Old MenCinematography: Robert Elswit, There Will be BloodForeign Film: The Lives of OthersAnimated Feature: PersepolisFirst Film: Sarah Polley, Away From HerDocumentary: No End in Sight

Sunday, December 09, 2007

I am still pretty excited about award season kicking off...especially because I feel like this year has some more surprises & unconventionalness

that last year lacked (by this point it became pretty clear that Forrest Whitaker and Helen Mirren were on the fast track to Oscar gold, and the best picture short list, was well...short), and it was only at this point that things got shaken up with multiple wins for Letters from Iwo Jima.

Production Design winner for the LAFCA has recently been winning the Oscar. There Will Be Blood looks like it's getting some technical love this year.

Is the cinemotography race going to be Kaminski vs. Deakins?

Inclusion of Ivanov, in the Cannes winning film does not sky rocket him to the top of award predictions for me...although it's interesting how common the young pregnancy film is this year.

There Will Be Blood has a hot push off of this list that the film needs. Especially after it's exclusion from the NBR list earlier this week.

The first list to exclude No Country For Old Men.

The LAFCA director winner has not gone unnominated since 1989 (Spike Lee, Do The Right Thing). Otherwise, even non-best picture nominated directors who won the LAFCA award have still been nominated (recent examples include Paul Greengrass, United 93; Almodovar, Talk to Her; Lynch, Mulholland Drive). PT Anderson looks like he has a great shot at his first best director Oscar nod.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Pre-nominations for the Documentary Category of the Academy Awards were announced today. With a little research I will try to summarize the topic of each of these 15 films in Eight words or less. If you have more insight or want to give your own crack on any of these films, have at it.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

The first real precursor, the National Board of Review has announced it's top films, and actors of the 2007 season.

The top film went to No Country For Old Men, clearly a critical favorite for the year and more and more a shoo-in for a nomination. Previous NBR best pics almost always score a nod, although the winning film here usually doesn't win the Oscar (like past wins for Letters from Iwo Jima, Good Night Good Luck, Finding Neverland, Mystic River, The Hours, Moulin Rogue).

In the past 20 years only three NBR winners did not get nods include: Quills (2000), Gods and Monsters (1998), & Empire of the Sun (1987).

It's probably a safe bet to assume at least 4 of the 5 best pic nods will come off this list. I'm excited to see The Kite Runner make the list, mostly because I'm very hopeful this will be a great film and would hate to be disappointed.

I'm surprised to see The Bucket List and Bourne Ultimatum make the list.

(The past 4 NBR Acting winners not only went on to get nominated, but also win...Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jamie Foxx & Sean Penn). I still don't see Clooney winning the race this year, but a nomination looks good.

Best Actress Honors went to Julie Christie in Away from Her. Hooray! She did great work in this film, so glad to see her honored.

No NBR winning actress has gone unnominated since Mia Farrow who won in 1990 for Alice.Best Supporting Actor honors went to Cassie Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. NBR tends to go with younger actors, and so in an old-actor heavy supporting year...it looks like Affleck has a chance to join some old men.

Best Supporting Actress honors went to Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone. I believe Ryan has an excellent chance at a nomination, although this is NBR's acting award that traditionally lines up horribly with Academy nominations.

Other NBR winners...

Best Director: Tim Burton, Sweeney ToddBest Foreign Film: The Diving Bell and the ButterflyBest Documentary: Body of WarBest Animated Feature: RatatouilleBest Ensemble Cast: No Country for Old MenBest Original Screenplay (tie): Diablo Cody, Juno and Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real GirlBest Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

In my last post, I mentioned how I thought that the short film race should be excluded from the Academy Awards. Not that I think the medium of short films is bad, but because it lacks relevancy.

The comments in the post below already are illuminating. Sure some people want to champion the genre and even want to broaden it's scope but as far as the Motion Pictures Academy is concerned, I don't know how they can continue to present this award.

I was able to watch a DVD Magnolia Home Entertainment put out of 2007's nominated and winning short films (all five live action films, and two in the animated category.) Attempting to watch these film my two frustrations became clear.

Quality Concern:I have posted the clip of "West Bank Story" below. This West Bank Story tells a 15-or-so minute retelling of West Side Story (a retelling of Romeo & Juliet) in Israel with two competing falafel restaurants, the Jewish "Kosher King" and the Arab "Hummus Hut." Through music and dance, this ridiculous story is funny...but only for about thirty seconds, to which point the gag is no longer funny.

How did West Bank Story ever get nominated and win in this category? In attempting to sit through the other 4 nominated films you realize that there really isn't that much competition, and because there is no commercial motivation for the short film format, there really is no drive to create quality work. I believe the standard in this category is two low if a unimpressive short film like "West Bank Story" wins the award.

Accessibility Concern:The animation winner "The Danish Poet" was such a magical little short film. The film playfully ponders the ideas of fate and possibility in a very magical and enjoyable film. The Norwegian film is directed by Torill Kove's and narrated by two time Oscar nominee Liv Ullmann.

The clip below of the Danish Poet doesn't do the film justice. It's tone and story telling is perfect for the short film format. The Danish Poet would lose all it's magic as a feature length film. Yet it saddens me that relatively no one has seen it. And even fewer people would have seen it if it hadn't been recognized by the Academy. I wish there were a way to make films like this more accessible. I wish movie theaters would show this in the theater while I'm waiting for the film to start, or something.

But in the absence of a large audience base, the Academy Awards does not seem like the place to award unseen films. Maybe this is a consumeristic attitude rather than an artful attitude, but I believe the award show is cheapened when winners in short film (animated, live action, and documentary) are drawn from a small pool of films that no one has seen.

The short film category is my least favorite category at the academy awards.

I know that I am missing some history in understanding this award's importance. Walt Disney has the record for the most academy award wins with 22...most of those wins and handful of additional nominations come from short films, some of which although older I can name and you will know exactly what short film I am referring to. For example, in 1969 Walt Disney won for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and in 1949 was nominated for Mickey and the Seal. Those are notable short films that have lasted.

Yet, in this past decade there is no Walt Disney, at least not as I see it. The first problem is there just doesn't seem like there's accessibility to watch short films. Sure some are exhibited at the festival circuit and Pixar tacks there's on before some of their movies, like the funny Oscar winning animated short For the Birds which was shown before Pixar's Monsters, Inc.

Yet, with 24 academy awards being handed out this year, the three I absolutely don't care about at this stage in the game are the awards for short films (best animated short film, best live action short film, and best documentary short film).

It's not the craft that makes me uninsterested it's the accessibility and relevance of these catagories.

Monday, December 03, 2007

It's movie season, but there's not tons to talk about...last weekends new release schedule was lame...it's holiday movie season and the top movie was Enchanted at under $17 million (followed by Beowolf at under $9 million).

This blog also had a quiet weekend, but I did not. I had the great chance to spend time with my parents & surprising my mom for her birthday. We had so much fun hanging out, playing games, talking, etc. Plus, I don't think I've ever eaten so good.

Enjoy this short video of my wife and my mom playing their first game of Wii Boxing. (The Wii was my father's early Christmas gift to himself).

Privacy Policy

This site uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.